FIlipino Soul Food | Interview with Christina Quackenbush, Chef+Owner of Milkfish NOLA
Cristina Quackenbush (Left) with her niece Brooklyn Druelinger (Right)
Filipino food has finally been getting the love and praise in the US. Jolibees, Filipino restaurants, and food trucks are popping out in the west, the east, and the mid-west. And in the South, one Filipina Chef is at the forefront making waves in the The Big Easy, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Cristina Quackenbush is the chef and owner of Milkfish Nola. She cooks the most delectable Philippine cuisine fused with southern soul food. Particularly famous are her Lechon Kawali Poboy and Fried Bread Pudding Bites.
From humble beginnings to Chef turned restaurant owner turned pop-up aficionado, her journey is full of delicious stories that feeds the soul of the food entrepreneur.
We sat down with her to talk about her origins, how it is to own and operate a Filipino restaurant in the south, how her food was received by locals and at the center of it all, how her family brought together a community through soul and food.
How did you get into cooking Filipino food?
I grew up in Indiana on a farm. I learned how to cook food from scratch from my step grandmother. She loved to garden and she literally had every fruit and vegetable that you can imagine. And she had a big pantry and had all this food to feed her entire family. We never went to the grocery store for produce. So that love was ingrained in me.
My mother taught me Filipino food with the basic stuff. She knows how to cook but in Indiana there's not enough supplies so she had to make do with what she had around. We had this one little Asian store that she would get longganisa and duck eggs, and different things. So, a lot of the food that she cooked is not how she would cook it in the Philippines.
All the rest of the Filipino food I had to teach myself and follow people and learn about them. And what was really interesting thing for me is learning the different regions of where the Filipino food came from.
What pushed you from casual home cooking to starting a business and creating a restaurant?
I love giving people Filipino food for the first time, which is so crazy. There's still so many people that haven't had it. But that's one of the main reasons I moved to New Orleans was because I wanted to get in touch with the settlement that the Filipino people here, I really want that.
I was like surely there's going to be Filipino food in New Orleans. There was nothing at all. So I was happy to be the first one to open the first full service Filipino restaurant.
I was a successful chef, just just working in some of the restaurants around here. And before I even got here, I've worked for some really good chefs. But the reason I moved here was to open my own restaurant. A restaurant where I could share my food that I grew up with cooking with the limited ingredient that I had. Even if it was just a small menu or a catering business, I was going to do it in New Orleans.
But I realized, when I would Google Filipino food nothing popped up! I was like, I should totally open up a Filipino restaurant. All the other places that I ever went to was not good Filipino food. So I was like, that's what I'm gonna do.
The chef that I was working for at the time. His name's Adolfo Garcia, who worked at a Spanish restaurant. He shows me his phone. He goes look at this article. And I was like, what is it? It's a lady in New York who did a Filipino pop up. And now she's doing great. And he goes, You should do that here. But your first pop up is going to be reservations only five courses. And I'm going to be your head cook. We made longanisa, we just did this whole five course thing. There was a important writer at my first pop up. We sold out it was just the most amazing experience. And I got all these reviews for having this amazing Filipino food pop up. I got written into a book for my Chicken Adobo. It was just a wild ride.
All of a sudden I had a restaurant. I had all these people come in and visiting me and all these collaborations all over and it was just a whirlwind. It was just amazing. I was able to make like 1.5 million the first year of my restaurant.
How does your customers react for their first time trying Filipino food?
It was really crazy because a lot of the people that tried it for the first time they was like this food is so soulful. And you can tell that this is the kind of food that your mom makes. So I started coining it the Southeast Asian soul food and so they started calling it that.
I would make stuff mixed with the dishes like Filipino barbecue shrimp, Filipino Gumbo, Filipino Jambalaya, Boudin Lumpia it was just a really interesting way to meld the two together.
Where do you get your inspiration in cooking?
I go out to the other Filipino Chefs that I’m friends with and eat different foods. It's great because I just walk in and get all kinds of stuff. And because we treat each other I get to eat at the nicest restaurants and like, rarely pay anything because I'm friends with all the other chefs around me.
I'm just like, feed me, you know, and try and taste different food all the time.
What are your hopes for the future?
I would like to pass my cooking to my children. They all worked at the restaurant. Everyone had a position. But since I close, they've all went did other things and are all successful with what they do.
My oldest daughter even said, “I want your cooking to survive. And that I want to take it over” She says, it's been very important to us and what's happened to us and New Orleans and all the history we've already made here.
She was like, I never want you to get rid of it. So, I'm just gonna have to keep it going for the family because they want to have they want to take it over.
Written By Julian Russel Yu Noche
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